Heart of courage
by chloemcg
Summary: When his youngest son is bitten by a spider, Jonathan Brisby rushes to see his friend Mr. Ages. But what should happen if the two friends talk about an upcoming mission, the one that ends Jonathan's life?


**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters of Secret of NIMH, even if the film is a beautiful masterpiece of animation. If you haven't watched the first film then do so ASAP! Its amazing, in my opinion!**

 **Heart of courage.**

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All was quiet as a gentle breeze picked up, making the leaves and grass gently sway in the evening air as some fireflies gently fluttered about and danced on the currents of wind that flew in all directions.

Other than some crickets chirping, all was surprisingly quiet as a big rundown tractor stood paralysed in a field, almost black against the night that covered the Fitzgibbons field where the human family grew their crops and tended to their farmland.

The sounds of the trees swaying in the wind actually sounded like little wooden wind chimes as everything was mostly quiet...until a small creature, namely a small mouse, decided to disturb what had been a peaceful silence until a few milliseconds prior.

The rodent in question was a slender grey adult mouse with two darker grey splotches covering left right shoulder and his left tarsus. A rather shaggy tuft of head fur rested in between his big round circular ears and an equal amount of scruffiness acted as his cheek fur. The young mouse also had a white-grey underbelly and his muzzle matched the exact same colouration.

His name was Jonathan Brisby.

Jonathan carefully climbed up the machinery by using one of the loose vines that had covered the old and broken-down machine but each time he climbed a bit higher, using his swift and nimble body to his advantage, his hold on a tiny bundle wrapped in blankets tightened just a little more.

The chilled evening air gently bristled his fur and made him wince from the numbing cold touching his skin.

Thankfully he had been wearing a red cape that he had made from a ragged cloth that he had found just outside his house, which was a cinder block not too far from the tractor he had been scaling.

The tiny blanketed creature Jonathan had been carrying seemed to have been caught in the autumn draft as it let out some loud squeaks of protest as it shuddered in the crook of the adult mouse's folded right arm.

 _'Don't worry, we're almost there...'_ Jonathan thought desperately as he tried to scale the massive piece of machinery.

He tried not to think of the numbing mid-autumn cold that plagued the farm right now and he also tried hard not to think of a certain young cat that might have been prowling about this very moment.

The young adult mouse continued to climb the tractor as hard as he could whilst he used the arm that wasn't carrying the tiny pink ball of flesh to hold the vine that he used as a rope.

He was seriously worried for his youngest child's life right now, as he and his beloved wife had noticed that a spider had bitten the runt of their most recent litter.

They didn't know what that spider did but they were worried nonetheless.

Jonathan, however, insisted that he took the tiny life alone while his dearly beloved stayed at home to look after their remaining three children. He didn't wish to bother his lover and let her go out alone so late at night when she had trouble with that stupid farm cat who had been given the most terrifying name of Dragon.

He would have been a much safer choice should Dragon went out looking for a late-night meal.

He climbed and climbed and climbed until he finally reached the top and he cautiously entered through the broken down machine. Everything was broken and, despite being a machine that had been inoperable for an estimate of several years, a fair amount of smog hung in the air and it was so strong and potent that it made the mouse almost cough his lungs out.

He even buried the tiny mouse he held in his chest to avoid it inhaling any of the possibly toxic fumes in the air.

"Ages! Ages, where are you?" Jonathan called out aloud, carefully scanning his surroundings to see if he could catch a glimpse of the older mouse.

He gave a sigh of impatience as he dropped down to all fours whilst he still clutched the tiny mouse babe to his chest and started skittering around.

But he didn't have to search for too long, thank goodness, since the particular mouse he sought out desperately for popped up from one corner of the machine. He gave a startled yelp as he stumbled around a little bit unbalanced.

It was a light grey mouse a lot less young-looking than Jonathan. He had a bushy moustache and beard and he wore a patchy apron along with some tiny glasses. He even had incredibly bushy eyebrows.

Startled, the older mouse pressed his claw against his chest to try and avoid having a heart attack.

"Goodness gracious, Jonathan, you frightened me out of my wits!"

"Sorry, it's just little Timmy here! He was asleep when my wife came to take care of him and we found a big wound on his arm and a spider was lingering nearby at the time! I was wondering if you could..."

The worried fatherly mouse didn't even need to finish his sentence as Mr. Ages had rushed up and practically ripped little Timmy out of his arms before setting him down on a small tuna tin can which was supposed to pass off as a examination table and he lain the little mouse down and unwrapped the blankets he had been bundled up in to get a better look at the alleged injury on its tiny arm.

Upon seeing such a telling sign of a spider bite on the mewling creature's forearm, Mr. Ages looked up and asked Jonathan without even glancing up at him "If at all possible, can you tell me the details of the spider that bit the little thing?"

Jonathan nodded. If it meant helping his son instead of just standing by helpless, he would do anything in a heartbeat. He lifted his gaze to the ceiling whilst he scratched his chin thoughtfully, recalling the earlier events of that evening. His wife had managed to catch the spider and managed to get Timothy and the other three children out whilst he somehow managed to scare it out.

His the gears in his brain turned as he started to recall several details what the intruding spider had and he started to count them up aloud whilst he thought deeply about it.

"Hmmm, it was a dull brown colour and had a strange spotted pattern."

Ages seemed to process this information very carefully as he cradled his own chin with his claw and he started to constantly mumble an incoherent line of speaking, something which the senile mouse did when he was pondering very deeply on something.

But then his eyes lit up like lights and he smiled.

"Ah, no need to fret. From the sound of it that spider was a Parasteatoda tepidariorum, it is a common species and its bite is quite harmless."

In other words, it was a simple American house spider.

Jonathan swore that he felt a weight lift off his heart as he heaved a deep sigh of relief and he just wanted to hold his runt-of-the-litter child and never let him go since he felt so incredibly relieved by the news. He smiled at his friend and patted his shoulder thankfully "Oh thanks, Agey! You really took a load off my mind!"

Mr. Ages shot a quick glance over towards the mouse "But remember, NIMH is still in the process of hunting us down. Nicodemus chose you to drug Dragon next."

Jonathan's smile faded as he looked at the older mouse. It was true, the rats of NIMH were getting tired of stealing power from the Fitzgibbons and knew that they had to move on eventually as their hunger for knowledge was growing and their destinies had moved on elsewhere.

Since he was the one who opened the door and enabled everyone to escape from NIMH the leader of the rats, named Nicodemus, had entrusted him with the task of drugging the farmers cat to prevent the risk of any casualties.

A cat prowling about wouldn't do at all if the rats wished to get away safely.

But then a certain other rat popped into his mind "What about Jenner?"

"...He knows about the plan and I think he's going to usurp the whole thing right under our noses." Ages replied in a grim tone.

Jonathan frowned firmly "Now, Ages. I know that something about Jenner rubs you the wrong way but you have to try and give him some time." He furrowed his brows as to paint a look of confusion and sternness "He's smart and he's more than capable of speaking his mind, he might warm up to the idea."

The two adults stiffened slightly. Normally this topic of discussion would have been more private but since it was only the two of them and a kit, they knew they were safe.

Ages sighed and proceeded to remove his glasses and wipe the lens clean with his cotton rag apron before reapplying them on to the bridge of his nose. Whence he blinked to rectify his vision, he decided to get back to treating the tiny kit whilst he dampened a small rag cloth with disinfectant and applied it to the inflamed bite wound on the mewling Timothy's tiny forearm.

Timmy squirmed in protest but Jonathan managed to pin his poor furless son on the table to keep him from moving around too much.

Ages muttered distastefully "Mmmm...I am still not convinced. You can be far too naive for your own good, Jonathan, I just don't trust Jenner."

Mr. Ages proceeded to tie a bandage around the squirming infant mouse as he glared silently. A long and awkward silence passed, Ages decided to end the morbid discussion as he passed little Timmy back over to the previously worried father. Of course Jon was more than thrilled to get his son back but that gloomy little chat didn't go away as it loomed over the three mice like a dark cloud.

Nobody dared speak a word until Mr. Ages sighed and shook his head dismissively "Your son shall be alright, I made sure to sterilise the wound so the inflammation should calm down."

"Thank you, my friend. Now I can let my wife know that Timmy's alright."

The grey blotched mouse dropped down on all fours, and he picked up little Timmy in his mouth and held him by the scruff of his tiny neck. He started to turn to exit the machine but before he did, he heard Ages speak up again.

"Oh and you really shouldn't bring such a young and fragile newborn out in the cold like this, don't you realise he could eventually catch pneumonia?"

Jonathan put his son down for a moment and rolled his eyes with a slight smirk; the older mouse could be such a worry-wart at times and sometimes he couldn't help but poke fun at such things. He brushed it off with a smile as he looked at Mr. Ages "Don't be silly, Ages, that'd never happen..."

The older mouse rolled his eyes when the fellow mouse had picked up the mewling babe again and Ages mumbled moodily as he stomped back towards the piece of machinery that he had been working on previously. He made sure to dive behind it all while giving a dismissive wave of the claw.

"Yes, yes, just get out of here."

"Thanks for the generosity, Mr. Ages..." Jonathan said sarcastically, even though he was smiling.

He skittered out of the machine and grinned mischievously as he started to calmly climb back down the machine whilst he continued to hold his son close against him. The cold was nipping at the skin under his thick grey fur and, because of the chilling evening, he wrapped Timothy in the blankets just a bit more so he could be fitted snugly.

The trees swayed and sounded like wooden wood chimes and the way the leaves blew softly in the breeze made a beautiful sound that sounded almost like a lullaby to his ears. It was a sound that made his whiskers bristle just a bit and he could swear that he could listen to this sound forever...no, his wife's singing and kind yet soft-spoken voice was a sound he could listen to forever.

"Come along, Tim, let's get you home." The intellectual mouse even spared a second to plant a quick kiss on his son's fleshy pink head and he nuzzled him lovingly. It was an action that earned a loud squeak of annoyance as the kit shifted in his fathers hold.

This only earned a small chuckle from Jonathan as he held the tiny bundled form even closer, if possible, and he crooned in Timmy's tiny ear "I will always protect you..."

There was no question about it. He loved his family and he would always love them, no matter what happened.

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 **A/N: Hi, guys. This is my very first Secret of NIMH fanfic and I'm quite proud of it. I thought that since we never got much on Jonathan nor that spider bite that Timmy had apparently received and then I thought...why not put that up? Plus, I don't think there are enough Secret of NIMH fanfic's so I decided to do my part in uploading this.**

 **I hope you like this, and please review.**

 **-Chloemcg**


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